I always undercut, and always by at least 10%. Because I don't play this game as a business simulation, and I don't care about maximizing my virtual gold stash. So you see, this works both ways.

If you don't care about maximizing your gold stash, why don't you sell all your goods for 1 gold each? Or why even sell them at all if you don't care? The answer is, you do care but you are just ignorant to what you goods are actually worth, or what people will actually pay. Or alternatively, if you don't care, give the nearest person in org/stormwind 10% of your gold, because that is what you are doing basically. The fact is, unless you are trying to drive the price down,, there isn't much of a reason to undercut by a lot. Is there really a difference between undercutting by 1c vs. 10% ? You know the same person you are undercutting by 10% will undercut you in an hour or less(probably for 1c or 1s), so the game starts again. Honestly i bet the main difference between 1c undercutters and the people that don't do it is the undercutters are using auctionhouse mods. If you aren't by this point and you play the AH in any shape or form, you are wasting extra time.

I undercut by 1cp. I would prefer that others did as well, since this keeps the price stable. When people undercut by a lot, the price on that item drops to nothing in just a few short days.

But it's a free market, and I don't blame people who undercut by a lot, I just view it as the way things are, and something that I have to react to smartly to continue profiting. My income is diversified enough so that if the price is wrecked on a few things, or even a dozen things, it doesn't really affect me.

Undercutting is like sleeping with a buddy's girl after they've been broken up a bit. Some folks do it, and it doesn't bother them, other folks don't. It sucks balls when it happens to you. A lot like camping neutral ah's to grab shit someone is transferring from one faction to the other.

I know it's probably just stereotyping, but I noticed it will happen so much more on the weekends. The big markets get undercut to hell and back (ele ore/herbs and such). I used to buy stuff on the weekends and re list during the week days, you could make a good bit of gold if you had a good firm grasp on the economy highs and lows. the week or so before a big patch is normally the best time to sell stuff if alot of folks are speculating. (4.2 was speculated so much, i sold truegold for 600-650g per the entire week before the patch. it's around 400-500 now. No real HIGH demand for it, and you have more made every day)

Undercutting by more than 1 copper is pretty silly most of the time. Most items will sell whether you undercut by 1c or 100g, especially things like glyphs and gems. The only reason to undercut by more than 1c is if you just want to make less gold, or you're impatient and want someone to immediately buy your item because it's super cheap.

Is it irritating? Sure. But so is someone undercutting by 25g every time they post a gem, completely killing the profits on the entire market. Small undercuts are the lesser of 2 evils by far.

To all of you saying it sucks to be undercutted yourself. Let's get this straight. You go to the AH to earn some money, right? You're not vendoring that. Fine, so your purpose is to make money. Now, I auction something for 100g. If I sell it, I'm gonna earn 100g. Yay. Now someone else comes and auctions it for 99g 99s 99c. So I cancel my auction and post it at 99g 99s 98c. My loss is 2c. Not that bad. Now, in your perfect world where you never get undercutted, someone comes and auctions it for 80g. So I have to cancel it (or wait for it to be bought, but if it's something that have fast incomings (gems) is not even an option) and auction it for atleast 79g 99s 99c. But hey, if it sucks to be undercutted, I will not undercut neither, right? So I'm auctioning it for 60g. So now I lost 40g, and I'm in the same situation as if I undercutted, because I had to re-auction the item, but earning 40g less. I mean, isn't this defeating the purpose of earning money in the AH? So yeah, all of you saying you get past the 1c items, that's really stupid, you're punishing the right behaviour. I once was a AH player, where I could earn a minimum of 2k to 5k per day (don't give a shit if it's a lot or shit benefits for you), and it bothered me each time someone didn't undercut me.

Undercutting is a normal part of selling items in the AH, it is a method that increases your chances of selling that particular item. I do it, other people do it, and I don't see the reason to why not if the price still stays above the desired limit. It doesn't matter if it's by 1 copper or more, it's all a part of how the AH works and you just need to act according to the situation, see if you can take advantage of it or whether you should back off for the time being until the prices recover. If someone can't stand undercutters, they should sell items via the trade chat in my opinion.

Professional jewelcrafter, alchemist, scribe, tailor and enchanter. Glad to help, but also wish that people learned to use search engines.
Passionate Guild Wars fan since 2005. Waiting Guild Wars 2 excitedly since Eye of the North, 2007. Still a little bit of waiting to go! =)

Obviously the 1 copper undercut is the only way of keeping the market prices right, but even still every now and then a chap shows up and undercuts for ridiculous amounts (ie. gem going for 80g each and he undercuts it to 45g).

What usually works is just keeping your own items buyout price at the original 80g and having a bid of 25g so they get listed before the cheaper ones. If you spam enough of those 25g-bid ones, people without an AH addon won't bother scrolling past the first page and end up buying your 80g gems instead of the 40g ones.

If you don't care about maximizing your gold stash, why don't you sell all your goods for 1 gold each? Or why even sell them at all if you don't care? The answer is, you do care but you are just ignorant to what you goods are actually worth, or what people will actually pay. Or alternatively, if you don't care, give the nearest person in org/stormwind 10% of your gold, because that is what you are doing basically. The fact is, unless you are trying to drive the price down,, there isn't much of a reason to undercut by a lot. Is there really a difference between undercutting by 1c vs. 10% ? You know the same person you are undercutting by 10% will undercut you in an hour or less(probably for 1c or 1s), so the game starts again. Honestly i bet the main difference between 1c undercutters and the people that don't do it is the undercutters are using auctionhouse mods. If you aren't by this point and you play the AH in any shape or form, you are wasting extra time.

Once again you are projecting your own reasons for playing this game onto others.
So let me say this again: I don't care about maximizing my virtual gold stash. No matter what you say, I don't care. Period.

I do not sell for prices I would not be willing to pay myself. If that means I undercut somebody by a massive amount, so be it. I don't care. My shit will sell, I'm still earning money. Maybe not as much as whoever posted theirs' for higher, but I'm making money and that's all I care about.

EDIT: Just throwing this out there to give you an idea of what kind of auction house troll I am - two friends and I once destroyed the ore and gem market on our server. For fun. It was glorious.

I had one issue with a rival leatherworking... neways what happened was i was putting leg hancements and heavy sav leather on like 3-5 gold cheaper than what he was selling for... so he brought all my shit and then reposted... good on him for doing that... but as soon as he brought them i just reposted more and this lasted i think a hour and he was there left selling the shit for the next week or so =D happy days

"Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable."
"If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking."

The alternative to undercutting being to place your item on the AH for a higher price than everyone else? That doesn't shift the goods.

If there are only one or two items on the AH, which I know someone will buy in bulk, I will post for a higher price. But if the market it flooded with the item, then I will post below the guy above. Either a small undercut that my addon will provide, or for a set price that I believe the item is truly worth if I think the market is currently too high. (For example, my glyphs have a set price, 100g. If the market is too low I don't post. If the market is too high, they go up at 100g, even if the next seller is 250g).

If the market gets flooded, then prices will fall. This is standard economics, 100 people can't sell the same sword, if only 50 people want to buy them. You compete to be the lowest, cutting your profit margin. Or if things get really bad, minimising your loss.

Undercutting is fair, and by any amount. If someone else thinks that a 50g profit margin is good for him, compared to your 500g profit margin, then he's going to get the sales. You'll either have to reduce your profit margin to match, or just wait for all his items to be sold.

The only problem I have is when a gold capped guy comes and resets the market by undercutting deep, lower than mats costs or market level ... then it sux. But I can deal that I have all professions, having a market ruined sux and you can't fight gold capped people without losing gold.

I will always undercut, sometimes by a copper, sometimes ill be very aggressive with the undercutting taking items down from 140g to 80g simply to sell more than the competition me selling 20 gems at 80g, is better than me selling 3 or 4 gems at 140g.
I have had some very annoyed people whisper me over this and other things I do on the AH, but screw em! I allays end the day with up to 10k more than I start with.

I undercut by 1cp. I would prefer that others did as well, since this keeps the price stable. When people undercut by a lot, the price on that item drops to nothing in just a few short days.

Exactly. People are not thinking. As an example; when 4.2 came out the price of many cut inferno rubies went from 80g to 160g. Customers are happy to pay it because many people are rolling in gold (as is evidenced by the 40k+ charged for FL trash drops). If jewelcrafters were smart, they'd price their gems at slightly below the current stock such that we see a gradual drop in price.

But no: Intellectually challenged JCs cut their prices by tens of gold repeatedly such that i now see prices only slightly higher than in 4.1.

Another case now. I looked at "delicate inferno ruby", and the lowest ones listed was at 149g. I list 6 of them for 139g 99s 99c. 30 minutes ago, someone else list 10 of them at 139g 98s 99c. I personaly find it very irritating. Should i be that much irritated ?

This is perfectly fine. You have the same right to undercut just as that person did.

Exactly. People are not thinking. As an example; when 4.2 came out the price of many cut inferno rubies went from 80g to 160g. Customers are happy to pay it because many people are rolling in gold (as is evidenced by the 40k+ charged for FL trash drops). If jewelcrafters were smart, they'd price their gems at slightly below the current stock such that we see a gradual drop in price.

But no: Intellectually challenged JCs cut their prices by tens of gold repeatedly such that i now see prices only slightly higher than in 4.1.

This happened on my server, too. My bankroll allowed me to buy alls gems of the three most sold inferno ruby cuts (+40 Agi/Str/Int) out, because the supply is limited, the demand very high the first days after a patch.
Whenever a great amount of those inferno rubies dropped below 90 Gold, I buy out all of them and relist for 299G. Within minutes I got undercut to 150 gold, but after that the prices stay between 100 und 130 gold for the 48 hours at least and allow me a good return of invest.
After that, I will reset again.

Some cuts have a "daily demand", you will sell them daily. Here you should take the risk if only 15-20 gems are listed at lets say 20-35G, but you KNOW the "market price" is sth like 50-60 Gold. Just try to reset the price to 99 Gold and wait what happens.

Furthermore, check the supply of ore (if there are 250 stack of elementium listed for 19 G/stack, you buy this out immediately or it will fail).
When you are able to spend a lot of time in the AH, it's the "deep undercutters" and the casual AH sellers that instantly undercut a big undercut again that make you rich, actually.